Evolution: as immaterial information (Introduction)

by dhw, Wednesday, June 01, 2022, 11:54 (696 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: A new evolutionary theory based on transferred information:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0303264721001544

I’m afraid I find such articles totally off-putting. We are swamped with language, terms are left undefined, and if there really is a new evolutionary theory, I have no idea what it is. But I am a layman, and you seem to understand all this stuff, so do please correct any misunderstandings in the following howls of frustration:

QUOTE: Most biologists agree that evolution is contingent on inherited information shaped by natural selection.

This makes no sense at all to me. Even if we accept the concept of “information” as being central, evolution is contingent on inherited information changing itself, and the changes are not shaped by natural selection, which only functions when the changes have been made, i.e. by “selecting” those which prove to be advantageous. So the crucial question is what changes inherited information and how does this change the genes? Answer: “The predominant Modern Synthesis (MS) paradigm holds the position that evolution occurs through random changes acting on genomic inheritance. However, studies from recent decades have revealed that evolutionary inheritance also includes DNA-methylation, RNA, symbionts, and culture, among other factors.” Random changes could only mean that the genes produce and change the immaterial information. Culture can only mean that immaterial information changes the genes. How? No hint. Instead the authors delve into the nature of “inherited information”.

Then they suddenly decide that the crucial question is: “what defines life? According to ICM, living systems are manifestations of immaterial information propagating through time, in essence, by reorganizing matter. Also, according to ICM, evolution of life happens through differential propagation of diversifying immaterial information. We argue that the implication of this is that information that propagates is life.”

The very first item in the summary is: “Information is immaterial by nature but must have a physical form to exist.” So how does immaterial information create (let alone diversify) life by “propagating”, if it doesn’t exist until the material form already exists? Besides, there are plenty of physical forms that are full of “information” and are not alive, so the authors might just as well define life as the product of “information” that makes materials live. Not exactly edifying.

DAVID: This is totally consistent with my view that the material genome delivers immaterial information that forms life and makes it exist.

At least you have materials producing information, which makes sense, but it still doesn’t explain anything. We still don’t have a clue WHAT “information” makes materials live or how it does so, and if it doesn’t exist until the materials exist, the implication would be that it actually comes from the materials, which means we have materials producing information which animates or changes materials. But I really don’t know why we have to be constantly bombarded with the term “information” anyway, as if the word (which has multiple applications in multiple contexts) somehow solves all the mysteries. Nobody knows how materials become alive, and evolution is the process whereby living organisms have complexified and diversified into different forms – nobody knows how. We don’t have enough information.